Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL) (41 page)

“Two Maegesters, two Angels,
and a tiger
couldn’t kill one hellcnight?” He tsked mockingly and rose from his throne. Rain poured in through the collapsed parts of the ceiling.
Now probably wouldn’t be a good time to tell him that we weren’t in fact Maegesters but rather Maegesters-in-Training.

Vodnik ratcheted up his signature and I realized “white- hot” had merely been “pre-heat” for him. Ari’s signature fired in response, gaining heat at an alarming rate. Suddenly, it was crackling and blisteringly hot. I felt the spell Impenetrable slip over me just as I was shaping a waning magic shield. But Vodnik didn’t walk toward me. He walked toward Zella, who jumped up from her seat and started backing away.

Vodnik grinned maliciously. “I know what you said in your complaint,” he said to her, almost near enough to touch her. “
And
I know what your sister said in hers.” Vodnik grabbed the hem of Zella’s dress. She stifled a shriek. “I know,” he said, pulling her slowly toward him, “because the Boatman told me.”

“Now,” I murmured to Rafe, giving him the sign to cast Revelare Lucere. I was a second away from blasting Vodnik anyway. It was clear that the demon in front of us was no kind and benevolent patron and I wanted to know which demon we were dealing with.

I screamed at Zella to “Run!” She looked terrified, but managed to extricate her dress from Vodnik’s grasp before he actually touched her. She scrambled toward the heavy oak doors we’d just come through, but in her haste to get away she stumbled headlong onto the ground. Virtus paced and growled and Zella started shrieking. Rafe began to cast Revelare Lucere. It wasn’t a spell he could cast with the flick of his wrist so while he was muttering what seemed like an endless string of ancient words and phrases, Vodnik had a chance to shape his magic into a great big flaming spear. He threw it straight toward me.

Zella got up from the floor and mercifully made it to the door. She struggled to push it open. Her legs were cut and bleeding and she clutched at her middle, grimacing in pain. Vodnik’s spear soared toward me, its shaft fiery and
dark
. I remembered how effective some of my darker magic blasts had been. Fear laced through my veins the way frost forms on a windowpane. Fara cast something over Ari.

Vodnik’s fiery spear glanced off my waning magic shield with such force, my teeth knocked together. The reverberation of magical spear against shield doubled my vision for a moment. Thank Luck I’d avoided a direct hit. But I underestimated the demon in front of me. Most demons who throw magic (versus shaping it for hand-to-hand combat) need time to “reload.” Most waning magic users weren’t powerful enough to throw two near-simultaneous blasts. Unfortunately, Vodnik (or Grimasca) was atypical. He threw a second, darker fiery spear almost immediately after the first. The second one hit me.

Right in my thigh, which exploded in pain. I howled and fell to the floor. My face bounced off the corner of a rock, slashing the skin on my cheek. Three inches higher and it would have hit my temple and been the end of me. I looked up and shook my head to clear it. Blood dripped down my cheek, jaw, and neck. Zella finally escaped from the room. Vodnik took a flying leap toward me. He snarled ferociously, wielding a flaming sword that was aimed right at my neck. Ari gave me a look so fleeting and so full of regret that I later thought I might have imagined it. And then he leapt up to meet Vodnik wielding a flaming sword of his own. Rafe finished casting Revelare Lucere over Vodnik just as he and Ari’s swords clashed. There was a snapping, crackling sound and then a burst of fuchsia, gold, and aquamarine sparks filled the air. Vodnik and Ari fell to the ground together and started shifting.

Both
of them.

I stared in horror as Vodnik’s slick, dark green skin turned translucent and his snake eyes changed from gold to red. His mossy beard disappeared as he grew what looked like an infinite number of jagged teeth in an oversized jaw. But Ari’s transformation was even more shocking. He morphed into a demon that looked like Jezebeth had, with greenish black scales, a long, thick tail, and those half dozen long, ridged, lance-like spirals. And
wings
. Ari had wings. He’d shifted into a drakon.

“You botched the spell!” I shouted to Rafe, who looked as stupefied as the rest of us.

Ari tipped his beast head back, opened his now massively large jaw, and brayed. The sound of it reverberated off of the stone walls and escaped out into the darkening evening. If the people of the Shallows weren’t hiding in their huts before, they would be now. Ari unfurled his wings, almost as if he were stretching them or testing them for the first time. Then he curled them back in and lowered his head toward the hellcnight in front of him. The lance-like spirals were now aimed toward the hellcnight like scythes on reaping day. The hellcnight, whose form had remained humanoid, still held his fiery sword as it advanced on Ari’s drakon form.

“Exsignare!”—
Extinguish his signature
—I called to our group, firing up my own fiery weapon, a flaming falchion like the one I’d shaped in the Meadow earlier today. I’d deal with Ari the drakon and Rafe’s botched spell after we killed the hellcnight.

As a group we converged on the hellcnight. It was over in seconds. The hellcnight rushed Ari. Ari didn’t even spare us a glance. He ran the hellcnight threw on one of his lance-like bone spirals and reared. Gravity impaled the hellcnight further. Ari brought his forelegs to the ground with a thunderous rumble and shook the hellcnight off. The hellcnight’s lifeless body landed a few feet from where Ari stood. I thought he would leave off then but either battle rage or confusion over the botched spell got the better of him and he stomped on the hellcnight once more and then—and this was the part I could never forget—Ari bit the hellcnight’s head off. Some measure of humanity must have reasserted itself then because he did nothing else. He opened his mouth and dropped the head. It rolled to a stop a foot or so from where I lay, panting in shock, the pain in my thigh nearly undoing me. Ari stared at the hellcnight’s head and then at me.

Ari wouldn’t attack
me
, would
he?

But then he gave a raucous cry and was gone. He unfurled his wings and flew off. I was left staring at the place where Ari had once stood, completely and utterly dumbfounded. And then the full impact of what had just happened started to sink in. If Rafe had botched the spell, Ari might never be human again.

I rounded on Rafe, who also still looked fairly stupefied by it all. Suddenly, I didn’t care that Rafe was a powerful spellcaster who had taken an oath to serve as my Guardian. I didn’t care that we’d fought
rogare
demons and nearly drowned together. I didn’t care that I’d been given the memory of his dead brother’s funeral. Or that he’d been nice to me on occasion, like the night he’d made tea for me when I couldn’t sleep or the day we laughed over me throwing that sandwich tray into the Lethe. I didn’t care that he’d tried to help me learn to control my fire, or that he knew a stupidly titled spell that could safely douse me when I couldn’t. I didn’t care that his touch had healed me. Or that he’d saved Delgato’s life or that he still tried to make friends with Virtus no matter how many times Virtus hissed and spit at him. I didn’t care that if I cut ties with him he’d never be paired with another ward. That he’d never be accepted back into the Joshua School, never accompany another Maegester into the field again. I didn’t care that he’d spend the rest of his life researching dull, theoretical academic questions in some dusty archive library or that his only company would be an endless stack of books. Because that’s all he was fit for. That was as it should be.

“You botched the spell, Rafe,” I said, barely repressing my magic.

“I didn’t,” he said in a hollow voice. And then he swallowed and looked away. “Ari
shifted
. The spell worked. It just revealed two demons instead of one.”

I don’t know what I’d expected him to say. Well, that’s not exactly true. I had expected some sort of apology or maybe a vague denial, but not this.

“Members of the Host don’t shift.”

“Demons do.”

“Ari’s not a demon! I know he’s not. Why would he hide something like that?” I said, getting more hysterical by the moment. “What would he
possibly
have to gain?” I shouted, my voice hoarse with emotion. “We live in a world where demons are
worshipped
, Rafe. If Ari were a demon, why wouldn’t he want to be adored?”

Fara placed her hand gently on my arm. “You need to be healed and then we can talk about this.”

Her calmness frightened me. The fact that she wasn’t aghast at what Rafe had done.
Was this just the Angels closing ranks?
The cold spot in the pit of my stomach told me otherwise.

“Fara,” I said, my voice scared. “You know what a botched spell looks like.” I could barely ask my next question. But I
had
to know.

“Did Rafe botch Revelare Lucere just now?” I whispered.

Slowly, she shook her head. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. But they weren’t real.
None
of this was, right? A high-pitched, strangled keening sound came out of my mouth and I collapsed to my knees. But I didn’t want to burn the keep, or Luck forbid the settlers’ huts outside, so I focused all of my waning magic into a fiery ball of
rage
and
regret
and
sadness
and even
hate
, and I blasted that damned bone throne all to hell. Rain poured from the open parts of the ceiling and bone dust poured down from the rest. In a matter of seconds the entire thing was reduced to ashes.

“Do
not
remake it,” I hissed to Rafe.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmured.

Virtus came over to me then and butted his head against my leg, purring loudly. Somewhat surreally, I remembered that cats purr when they are in distress. Virtus was still a cub. Maybe he was even more traumatized by what had happened here than I was.

I gave him a reassuring pat on the head and then held my hand out to Fara, who helped me up.

“You can heal me,” I said, hobbling toward the door, motioning to the Angels, “but let’s do it outside.”

Even the bubbling ooze of the moat would be preferable to
this
place.

S
ome lesser demons aren’t adored. They live in anonymity. Maybe that’s why he wanted to be a Maegester.”

A few hours later, the rain had stopped and we were sitting in the dirt courtyard inside the Stone Pointe moat. I’d sent Fara to check on Zella. I was worried she might already be in labor. Fara wasn’t a Mederi, but she knew some spells that might provide relief and comfort at least. Rafe had partially healed the wound in my thigh. Since it had been made with waning magic, I’d need a Mederi to finish the job, but at least I was now well enough to walk. In the time it had taken Rafe to cast the healing spell, the night had darkened. With the darkness, the questions had returned and we were now discussing, in various states of antagonism, Ari’s shocking betrayal. I’d nearly set fire to the moat a half dozen times (and Rafe had stopped me the same number of times with Flame Resistant Blanket) so, with my permission, Rafe had finally cast his most ridiculously titled spell to date—Chillax. He said he’d originally designed it to chill drinks but had inadvertently discovered a hidden benefit. Apparently, it also acted as a muscle and mood relaxant. Because I recalled only too vividly how I’d burned acres of rush lands the night Burr had died, I finally agreed to let him cast it over me. Just this once.

“Rafe,” I said incredulously, “do you hear yourself?!” Chillax took the edge off so I didn’t burn down the Shallows, but it hadn’t left me completely emotionless either.

“Demons may be worshipped in Halja, Noon, but who do you think really runs this country? The greater demons may not even exist. Have
you
ever seen them?”

I was speechless with disbelief. Disbelief at both what he was saying and the audacity it must have taken to say it in the first place. But Rafe persisted.

“
Your father
runs Halja. The executive to the Demon Council—
a Maegester
—rules this country, supposedly as the administrative head of a council of demons no one has ever actually seen, who themselves are regents for an absent demon king. Ari’s positioned himself well, attaching himself to you—Karanos’ only daughter. In fact, I’d argue that since Karanos has dozens of demon executioners, but only one daughter, Ari’s in an even better position this year than he was last year.”